"You know maybe if you just relaxed for half a second, and stopped looking so hard for the appropriate life mate, then you might wake up one morning next to one." - Hank Moody
"Oh please, you can't change that about a man. It's part of their genetic code. Like farting." - Samantha JonesLately I've been talking to some girl friends of mine, and I realize just how many people around me are ... really quite deprived, love-wise. Not love per se, I mean you know how I feel about love, but just in terms of someone to care for them, someone to be intimate with, someone to hold, someone's arms to be in ... it's as though some serious blockade is being enforced on us, and we're being emotionally starved like no other.
And then there are people like me, who think we live above the rest. We think we don't need what they need, and lack, and so we're better off. When my friends see couples being lovey-dovey to each other, they feel envy and claim they want a boyfriend too, that they want to be loved and cherished like that. But I don't see that when I look at the same scene. Hell no. My friends and I might have been looking at totally different things. They may have seen rainbows and butterflies, but I saw fiery flames of hell, that's what I saw.
Whenever I see couples, I just feel so ... relieved that I'm not in that situation anymore. I'm really done with that life, I thought. It was hellish to me, and I don't want someone to commit to anymore, I don't want to have to report my every move to someone who thinks he has the right over me, I don't want just one guy, to be frank. Why the hell would I want to spend the rest of my life with just one guy? And so armed with this perspective, I felt protected from the vulnerability of being robbed of something, happiness perhaps. You can't take away something I never had ... just like how you can't break a heart that was never whole in the first place. Kelly Clarkson was right.
And I'm perfectly fine with that of course, yet I can't help but think of how vulnerable that leaves us. I'm not going to lie. While I'm not dependent on men, it is true that there has never been a period in my life where I'm not with a guy, or at least interested in one. That's one problem by itself. I've seen girls who are TOTALLY dependent on guys, girls who always must have a partner and will do anything, including date a guy she absolutely has nothing in common with, just to keep herself occupied with someone (and then she ends up hurting the guy. Way to go). As Debra coins it, for these girls, guys are their "source of confidence". I don't want to be that girl, and I don't think I am that girl. I like my men, but I can certainly live without them. I have other passions in life too, you know. ;)
It's just the whole idea of ... not being hurt simply because we have no feelings in the first place. How long can this facade last before someone kicks down the front door and the whole deceptive structure comes falling down? I've been at a few exposed points in my life before, where I became cognizant of how it was not possible to be involved with a guy physically and not let those interests take an emotional dimension. Those desires mostly reared its ugly head when another girl shows up and you think, oh, so I do like him after all. And then you're just completely flummoxed, because you don't know what else to do now. This wasn't something you set out for, this wasn't something you prepared for and more importantly, this wasn't something he set out for. It sucks when you realize that you can't play the game up to their level after all, that you weren't the cold, detached person that you thought you were ... and his name comes up on MSN and you just feel like shit.
It took training, resistance, other guys and more training to finally immunize yourself against it all. Yet sometimes at 4 in the morning you find yourself sitting in front of your computer screen, wondering what to do next. When casual hook-ups turns into an emotional crusade you have to stub out, you develop anxiety for the next one that comes along, but you fall headlong into it anyway ... just because you can. Then it becomes this state of confusion in your head, where emotions stage an uprising against lust, and you're left rocking back and forth on your chair.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not lamenting anything, I'm just going through this thought process in my head, as I write it all down.
And the thing about relationships. Oh God, relationships. The problem with relationships is that ... you actually have to be with a someone. A whole ... other ... person. And a man, at that.
This time, however, the problem is not on their side but on mine. And mine being the fact that I really, really, REALLY don't know what I want from men anymore. I don't. If I were to have a boyfriend now, I can assure you I will be either the most chilled girlfriend in the world because, like Hank Moody says, I've raised the white flag long ago and accepted them for the emotional retards that they are. I really can't care less if you don't text me after a late night out, I really can't care less if you forgot to call, or go out too often, or is swarmed by girls. Face it girls, they're just guys. It's what they do. You can't change them. The best advice I've been told to give girls is to dump your boyfriend, go get another one and you'll realize they're all the same. Hey, if it makes you come to realization ...
Either I've learned to just accept guys for who they are, or I've learned to stop caring so much. Make no mistake, if I were to be in a relationship with you, I would have had strong feelings for you, but I've learned to isolate feelings from expectations a long time ago. Remember my motto? Yes, don't put hope in men, never put hope in men. Read it, memorize it, eat it, breathe it, chant it, STAMP IT OVER YOUR FOREHEAD IF YOU MUST. When you put hope that's when you're crushed. It's your birthday? He forgot? Whoops too bad who told you to put hope that he might remember it in the first place!
I know that this is a somewhat dysfunctional way to approach a relationship and the whole gender, but I really don't know. I thought I knew men, and even if I do know men, I don't know what to do with them anymore. Are they really just physical outlets with no emotional loopholes? Are they emotional peatbogs that you should not want to fall into? What do I want from them? What?
The saddest thing is, I know what I want. I want to feel loved, appreciated and cared for. The moment I found that vulnerable spot was the day everything just fell. A bigger mistake was acknowledging it. Women, try as we may, can never reach the same level of detachment as guys can. Whoever said guys are just as emotional as girls except they don't show it ... are liars. Stupid, ignorant liars. A man can sleep with a woman, leave at 5am on a plane with nothing but a note. A woman ... wants to cuddle after sex. We want intimacy, with a semblance of feelings. We want to feel like you appreciate us for just five minutes of our time together. We want to feel something, even if it's just sweet talk and lies. We all know everything you tell us are lies ... we just want to believe them anyway.
And I want all those after all ... I just seek it differently from everyone else. My conclusion is, feelings really mess you up. Of course I knew all along that I wanted to be loved and appreciated just like all the other girls. I'm just as messed up as everyone is ... I'm not any better, just a bit more armored by experience. It's a circular reasoning thing, that goes back to my first point, about how feelings really mess you up, even without the guy having to play a part, and how relationships are not worth it (that's when the guy plays a part, and screws things up further) ... and how you're better off just blockading yourself. Really.
